Controlled autophagy and/or agglutination or immobilization of cells should be very useful for a wide variety of therapeutic and other medical and non-medical uses.
Before describing the present invention in detail, it is first important to appreciate the differences between autophagy, cell lysis and apoptosis.
Autophagy (or self digestion) is the result of disrupting the cellular organelle--the lysosome--directly or indirectly, for example, by inhibition of mitochondrial activity. The cell thus digests itself from the inside, including digesting the plasma membrane of the cell, to leave behind the nucleus that is also partly digested and fragments.
Cell lysis, however, is cell death due to leakage of material from the cell and can be induced by changing the osmotic strength of the media surrounding the cell. Cell lysis can be induced by causing damage to the plasma membrane of the cell, for example with enzymes or antibiotics, to induce osmotic shock. Also in haemolysis, which is the specific lysis of red blood cells, haemoglobin is extruded by the cell to leave behind a damaged red blood cell membrane.
Finally, apoptosis is the fragmentation of the nucleus and the encapsulation of these fragments and cell organelles in plasma membrane fragments--this does not involve cell lysis or autophagy.
Traditional treatment for an infected host is the destruction of the invading virus or the like, leaving the cells of the host intact. Similarly, if abnormal cell growth of the host is responsible for the malady, then treatment, obviously, must only target the abnormal cells, leaving the normal cells intact.
Treatment of the latter type of malady, eg cancer and related diseases, has been the subject of much research and a large range of chemical compounds have been investigated with mixed results.
Preference for treatment with naturally occurring compounds is increasing and of the many alkaloids currently used or tested in medicine, many have been extracted from plants. In particular, the use of extracts of the plant species Solanum as an effective treatment of certain cancers has been known since at least 1825. Research into these extracts from 1965 onwards has established that the antineoplastic compound(s) was most likely a glycoalkaloid(s). Examples include B-solamarine, a glycoalkaloid extracted from Solanum dulcamara as a tumour inhibitor, and other glycoalkaloids extracted from Solanum sodomaeum L. which possess antineoplastic activity both in mice and humans. Another example is Solaplumbin--which is rhamnosyl 4.fwdarw.3! Solasodine--obtained from Nicotiana plumbaginifolia which has been shown to have anticancer properties in rats.
However, specificity remains a problem and it is not always possible to target solely the invading virus or the like or to only affect abnormal cells of the host.